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Lauryn Hill gets 3 months for tax evasion

Mon, 06 May 2013 22:01:00 +0000

NEWARK (AP) — Grammy-winning singer Lauryn Hill has been sentenced to three months in prison for failing to pay taxes on about $1 million in earnings.

She was also sentenced Monday in Newark to three additional months of home confinement.

The 37-year-old South Orange resident pleaded guilty last year in the case.

During a forceful statement to the judge, Hill explained she had always meant to eventually pay the taxes but was unable to during a period of time when she dropped out of the music business.

Before the sentencing, her attorney had said Hill had paid more than $970,000 to satisfy the state and federal tax liabilities.

Hill had faced a maximum sentence of one year each on three counts. Her attorney had sought probation.

It's not clear when or where she'd report to prison.

Lauryn Hill faces tax evasion sentencing

Mon, 06 May 2013 12:50:00 +0000

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — Grammy-winning singer Lauryn Hill is facing sentencing Monday in New Jersey on federal tax charges.

Hill pleaded guilty last year to not paying federal taxes on $1.8 million earned from 2005 to 2007. A judge two weeks ago said Hill had paid only about $50,000 of more than $500,000 she owes.

Hill said in an Internet posting that she has signed a recording contract with Sony that will help her pay her taxes.

She faces up to a year in prison on each of three counts. Her attorney is seeking probation for her.

The 37-year-old South Orange resident hasn't released much music since her 1998 solo debut, "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill," which has sold more than 10 million copies and won five Grammy Awards.

Wyclef Jean: I loved Lauryn Hill and my wife

Mon, 17 Sep 2012 23:30:00 +0000

I feel like an old man every time I tell a young gun what the music business was like in my day, when my group’s biggest record came out. I’m not even talking about how it was back in the days of Grandmaster Flash or even Public Enemy and A Tribe Called Quest. I’m talking about my day, which was only fifteen years ago — but that’s how much the world of music has changed. That’s a blink of an eye in the history of the business, but back then the things considered impossible today were still possible. Back then, in the nineties, a record could come out and sell 15 million copies if it struck a chord with the world at the time. Back then, radio could still make a somebody out of a nobody, and you couldn’t get recorded music for free unless you taped it live off the radio. People would line up to buy an artist’s new CD the day it came out, because to hear it, you had to own a piece of plastic with that song recorded on it.